Basic Concepts of Scheduling and Use of Microsoft Project software

Project: A project is the means of converting a vision, a dream or a need for reality. A Project is a set of activities which are networked in an order and aimed at achieving the defined goals for which the project is undertaken. Upon completion of all the activities, the goals of the project will be achieved.

Management: Management is the technique of understanding the problems, needs and controlling the use of Resources, Cost, Time, Scope and Quality.

Project Management: It is an art of controlling the cost, time, manpower and hardware & software resources involved in the project.

Project Management Plan All the detailed planning work done for different aspects of the project is integrated into one single plan known as the Project Management Plan.

This plan is used to control the project and acts as the baseline plan for the project. Once the plan is finalized by the project manager and his team it should be approved by the project's sponsor.

Planning: Most important phase of the project management. Planning is an art and science of converting a set of objectives to realization through a series of steps executed in an organized and predicted way so that there will be less requirement of changes in the plan later on. The old saying “Plan the work, Work the plan”

Scheduling Phase is the process of formalizing the planned activities, assigning the durations, resources, and sequence of occurrence in consultation with the team members.

Planning and Scheduling phases are undertaken before the actual project starts.

Controlling phase is undertaken during the actual project implementation.

Project controlling is a mechanism established to determine deviations from the project base schedule, to re-plan & reschedule during implementation to compensate the deviations on the basis of commissioning minima, flow of resources like finance, manpower, equipment & application techniques.

Closing phase is the last phase of the project which brings close out of the complete project. Whatever the project requirements are pre-defined, during this phase the total delivery is made and it is accepted by the customer.

Maximum conflicts can arise in the project during this phase between those who have worked to deliver the outcome (contractor) and those who are accepting the results of the work (customer).